Babies!!!!! On March 29th, 2017, CRUS Ivy gave birth to 15 beautiful lil pips(queaks). When born, they all weighed around 4-5 grams. They are now 13-17 grams at one week old. She has done a great job with them the past week. Because we have so many fun patterns in this litter we can give them nicknames a little bit earlier than a litter with all self ratties. Here is the fb album for the 2017 Spring 101 Dalmatian Litter.

We were going to wait until Aurora gained a bit more but by her actions and the current weight gain we are looking forward to hearing lil pips(queaks) in another week. On average we have tracked a weight gain of 43 grams by this point in pregnancy. That is with litters ranging from 4-18 babies - surprisingly the the largest gain was one with 11 in the litter. Aurora is pretty much gaining the same as the one that had 9 babies. (36 grams so far) Should be interesting to see what happens this next week.

We have moved Aurora to the bottom section of our TCN, locking the ladder for most of the day. As I type this she cuddled up in a nest full of a whole receipt paper roll. She does enjoy visiting with most of the mischief, however, our new girl Niki seems to really irritate her. Now looking back, timing of adding her was a poor choice on our part. Aurora had the protective mama hormones just starting to surge and knows most likely this new girl won't be watching out for her 'babies' like the rest of the girls in the mischief (her mama, sisters, nieces and Celtic Rose who we added when Aurora was just 5 weeks). Of course that is only our observations as we wish they could talk and tell us what they really want/need.

Her and Apollo have still had a few visits during the evenings but she has not gone back into heat. The only problem they have had together is when he wants to eat what she is eating. You can almost hear her say, "Seriously, I am the one with the cravings and you dare want my noodle!?!" I cannot wait to see the temperaments of their babies. She has always been the quiet sweet snuggle girl and Apollo is our huge cuddly oaf, reminding us of Ludo (Labyrinth 1986).

We were just asked for the news on OCRA Truffles? It reminded me that I had not updated her Adventure the past two weeks. I am not sure if it was the shock, or denial that caused me to avoid the discussion.

Once a week we weight our ratties. We do this to track their weight, watch for illness, and over all see the average weight for a rat at any given age. This is also a great tool when we are tracking weight in our pregnant females. We can tell right after a pairing if she has taken. We can also often tell right away if she has reabsorbed the litter. This also helps us guess fairly accurately how many lil pips(queaks) they will have.

This past month we were hoping to pair OCRA Aurora with Buddy Chandler of OCRA. So we have been giving her extra goodies to get her pre-pregnant weight up to 300 grams. Most of our lines to this point have been so small we have had a hard time getting them to meet our personal goal of 300 grams. On average the females have been 260 grams.

Little bit of info : With each pregnancy the female will gain more weight filling out after her babies have been weaned. They usually will not stay down at pre pregnant weight rather gain 10-30 grams due to the hormones that have flowed so freely during pregnancy and nursing.

For example:EmmaOreo of OCRA (our grandma) is now 334 grams from her previous weight of 297 grams. She is still sleek looking without a belly but her head is much broader than before. OCRA Truffleson the other hand went back down to 314 after her last pregnancy (14 grams more than pre pregnant weight) During the past few weeks she had actually gained over 40 grams going all the way to 354 grams!!! Panic. Concern. Confusion. That was what we all felt as we began to weigh even daily gains. We were actually worried that the boys in her last litter had matured early. Not common but still possible. We looked at dates, realizing that she would have had to hold over fertilized eggs before implantation for 8 days if she was pregnant again. Possible again but still doubtful.

We actually became convinced we were going to have another litter watching this weight gain. Fortunately, on Monday her weight dropped down 10 grams, and has continued daily to drop. Today she is 334 grams like her mama.

Two possibilities: The first, she was pregnant and has begun to reabsorb. The second, she had been sneaking Aurora's extra treats we have been giving her to fatten her up.

We will go with option two, even though the weight gain started before the extra treats - lol. Just because we cannot imagine getting so lucky again with her being healthy after her last delivery and us avoiding a serious catastrophe with her delayed delivery of her 4th baby.

( I had to come back here to add something I forgot to mention about our lil side adventure. I was desperate to figure out the weight gain and ended up going back to re-sex all of the ratties in the girls cage, Especially, CRUS Ariel and OCRA CRUS Artemis, since they were the more recent additions but am happy to confirm they are ALL girls - hahah)